


At Grass

by De_Nugis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-31
Updated: 2011-03-31
Packaged: 2017-10-17 10:16:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/175778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/De_Nugis/pseuds/De_Nugis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's been convalescing. Dean's been busy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At Grass

**Author's Note:**

> written for [this prompt](http://community.livejournal.com/samdean_otp/105546.html?thread=490314#t490314) from [](http://whitereflection.livejournal.com/profile)[**whitereflection**](http://whitereflection.livejournal.com/) at the [First Time spring break commentfic meme](http://community.livejournal.com/samdean_otp/105546.html) over at [](http://community.livejournal.com/samdean_otp/profile)[**samdean_otp**](http://community.livejournal.com/samdean_otp/) . Title stolen from Philip Larkin.

It’s weeks, maybe months – he’s kind of lost count – before Sam even wonders what Dean’s up to.

At first, when things were haziest, there can’t have been anything to discover. Dean was right there, all the time, combining nurse and arresting officer the way he does, and Sam was too busy trying to breathe, trying to sleep without the whisper of Lucifer’s voice and wake without the echo of Adam’s screams, to be curious. He didn’t ask where they were or what had happened, whether his latest seizure caused the clusterfuck the hunt ended in or vice versa.

He finds all that out once he’s convalescent. But he feels no urge to venture forward or back in his head. Knows not to, like he knows not to set his right foot on the ground. Maybe it’s fear that’s outside the walls of the bubble he’s in, drifting at a safe distance through unfamiliar routine. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want to go beyond it.

Mostly, though, Sam’s just tired. It’s been a long six years. Seven, if you count the one he can’t remember. Or almost two hundred. Anyway, he doesn’t go exploring, doesn’t so much as set foot out the back door, on the countryside side of the cabin, even when his ankle can mostly hold his weight. He limps dutifully through the front door and down the dirt road each day with his cane, as far as Route 4. He hardly ever sees a car there, it’s more byway than highway. Then back to the cabin. Slow and careful, so the knitting ribs won’t pinch and his breath won’t catch and stab in the lung they punctured. The rest of the time he lies on the couch, piled with the pillows Dean keeps collecting from some, like, alternate pillow dimension, and naps, and reads.

Dean never lost the habit of reading on the road. Tolkien, Vonnegut, Bujold, Heinlein. Always sprawled on his stomach, diagonal across whatever ugly bedspread that night’s motel sported, elbows propped, breathing gone quiet as the turning pages. Once, Sam swears to God, a book by that Anne of Green Gables woman, and Dean was _crying_. Something about a dog.

But Sam, Sam was always chasing something, those years since the hunt got him back. The demon, then Dean’s deal. Then Lilith. Then the Horsemen and Lucifer. Dean himself. Right there beside him, but not, gone off to some infinite distance after Sam fucked up and betrayed him. There was always something to research, something to track and find, some next thing. And his books had burned with Jess, anyway. No point in replacing all those promises and elsewheres. He never should have listened to them to begin with.

Now, though, he’s washed up in a here, or maybe this is one of the elsewheres, in a cabin he sort of kind of inherited when he shot his grandfather. He doesn’t feel like talking. The TV is noisy. The laptop digs painfully at his healing ribs when he balances it on his chest. There’s nothing to put in the Google box anyway, nothing for the little magnifying glass to find. So one day he asks Dean to haul in the two milkcrates of books from the car.

He rereads _The Lord of the Rings_ first. Then he pulls _Rilla of Ingleside_ out from where it’s wedged behind the Patrick O’Brians and reads it, too, so he can make fun of Dean. When Dean comes in that evening, leaving his shoes on the back porch, sneaky bastard, Sam swipes his sleeve over his eyes and mentions casually that he might be getting a cold. Dean doesn’t call him on it. Glass houses. Little Dog Monday joins the stuff they both pretend never happened.

Sam starts in on _Master and Commander_ after dinner and falls asleep before nine.

Dean, on the other hand, seems full of energy. He fixes up the place, mending cabinet doors and replacing cracked panes of glass, repairing the cords the window sashes run on because he claims Sam’s stinking up the whole cabin on chili nights. Then he plasters and paints, working on whichever room Sam’s not in. Once Sam’s well enough for Dean to downgrade hover settings from orange to yellow Dean stays outside more. Sometimes Sam will hear vague hammering and crashing sounds off down the hill, like Dean’s taken up lumberjacking. When he comes back from drives into town he thuds and rattles around the back porch, where Sam never goes, before he brings in the groceries. Groceries, and a pile of library books. Dean sets the books by Sam’s couch without a word and then puts the food away. Sam picks up _To Kill a Mockingbird_ and starts to reread it. Dean takes to leaving the cabin every morning as soon as it’s fully light. Sam goes through the Riddlemaster trilogy and then the Vlad Taltos books, up to where they stop being good.

He doesn’t ask. It’s peaceful, almost like being in the car when he was very small, watching the towns go by, not needing to know where they were going. Daddy knew, after all. And Dean.

One day he looks up from _Five Hundred Years After_  to find Dean standing over the couch. It’s some time after breakfast, nine maybe. Maybe eleven. Dean’s usually out.

“What?” says Sam.

“You’re coming with me,” says Dean, “Enough is enough. Your days of lounging around doing nothing are over.”

“I’m not doing nothing,” Sam says, “I’m reading.”

“You’ll ruin your eyes,” says Dean, “And I think you’re starting to mildew. Come on. There’s something I want to show you.”

It had been cloudy when Sam took his usual walk down the road, but the sun is soft and bright out the back door. The weather changes a lot here. Or maybe his walk had been yesterday. He probably hasn’t done that yet today.

Dean’s taking him down a gentle slope of grass, Sam picking his way cautiously with his cane. It’s pretty out here. There are twisty trees with pink flowers, maybe apple trees. Sam can hear a stream running as they get towards the bottom of the hill. And a sort of bleating gobble, bizarre but familiar. They take a turn around a couple of the pink flowered trees and Sam sees a fence, circling a tract of grass and a corner of the stream and a low shed. Dean built a fence? Dean built a shed? Then Sam sees what’s looking over the fence and he remembers where he heard that noise before.

“Dude,” he says, “Alpacas? Like Jared Padwhatsisname, jerk actor, alpacas?”

Dean stops at the fence, leans on it, talks fiercely to one of the posts, not looking at Sam. “Listen, OK? I can’t get you all that stuff. I can’t get you that world where there aren’t any monsters and there’s no fucking hell and you don’t need a wall in your brain. But at least I can get you a goddamn alpaca.”

“Two of them,” says Sam. Two woolly, alien necks, four pricked up, curious ears, are swiveling towards him. Their eyes are wideset and friendly, like teddy bear eyes.

Dean looks embarrassed and defiant and proud. “Marty and Grace,” he says. One of them nuzzles at his shoulder and he pulls a handful of pellet things out of his pocket -- Dean has alpaca snacks in his pockets? – and holds them out. The alpaca gathers them up with soft lips and crunches on them.

Sam looks away – seems like this is kind of a private bonding moment between Dean and Marty (or Grace). The grass is dotted with dandelions, and there’s a huge lilac in bloom. It’s outside the alpacas’ fence. Presumably Dean doesn’t want them eating it. It must be May, maybe even Sam’s birthday. Maybe that’s why Dean is dragging him into the sun and trying to give him alpacas. Dean’s whistling, honest to God whistling. Sam sneaks a glance at him. He’s tanned a bit, and the corners of his eyes are crinkling up affectionately while he scratches behind Marty’s (Grace’s?) ears. It suits Dean, this thing. This thing where he has a cabin to fix and Marty and Grace to eat from his hand, out here in the morning. Where he’s not hunting down nameless monsters at night, killing things all over the placeless map.

Sam’s heart is beating hard in his chest, hard enough that the walls of the bubble tremble and thin. But he thinks it’s all right. It’s not going to burst and drop him back through another seizure into the cage. He stretches a hand out cautiously and finds the soft cloth of Dean’s sleeve. When he reaches around the back of Dean’s neck it’s warm from the sun, short hairs bristling against Sam’s palm.

Dean draws a startled breath. This is one of the things Sam’s been too tired to do for a long time now. Not that he doesn’t want to, it’s just that he’s been tired. “Sam?” Dean says. Sam takes a step forward. He brushes his lips over Dean’s, the barest touch. Presses forward a little more, so he can feel Dean’s heartbeat and his chest rising and falling. So he can put his arm over Dean’s shoulder, get the weight off his bad ankle, take his time. Dean’s ready to be leaned on like always, shifting his balance and hooking his arm under Sam’s and parting his lips. This time the kiss is slow and deep, and Sam only breaks off because he’s getting breathless, air hitching in that place behind his ribs. Dean’s hand comes up under his shirt and circles over his ribcage, fingers skating carefully over the small knot of pain. Sam kisses him again, mouths at the corner of his jaw. Who needs air?

One of the alpacas (Grace?) makes a low, burbly, sound, unmistakably disapproving. Sam glares at it over Dean’s shoulder.

“Haven’t you ever seen two brothers kiss before?” he asks. The alpaca digs in its dainty little toes and tries to look cute.

“You gotta give them time, Sammy,” says Dean placatingly. Of course Dean’s taking the side of the fucking alpacas. “They’ll adjust to the incest thing. Sorry,” he adds to Grace (or Marty), “We’ll, uh, head back to the house now.” The alpaca abandons its moral stance and wanders closer to chew on the sleeve of Dean’s hoodie.

“No we won’t,” says Sam, keeping a firm hold on Dean, “I don’t believe it’s even caught on to the incest thing. I think it’s just homophobic. You got us homophobic alpacas.”

“Well, excuse me for not imposing political litmus tests on our grazing beasts,” says Dean.

“They should learn tolerance,” says Sam, “No time like the present.” The bubble is gone but he’s still out. There’s grass and Dean under him, sun on the back of his head. He’s out under the breezy sky and the stare of judgmental alpacas.

They take it slow, what with ankle and ribs and not having done this in a long time. Stretches of kissing and groping, almost leisurely, under each other’s clothes, heading down towards the center in lazy, dizzying spirals. They could take all day, after all, and still get back home in time to read for an hour or so before dinner. Maybe Sam should get some books on alpacas. Dean’s got so far ahead of him on this one. But it’s not like he won’t wait for Sam to catch up. Sam buries his nose in Dean’s neck, jacks Dean firm and steady, hears Dean panting and babbling his name, Marty (or Grace) grumbling in the background. Smells lilac and grass when he comes.


End file.
